1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a composite holding device housing a plurality of holders for holding media for writing-related use (e.g., a pencil lead, an ink, a stick glue, an eraser and a correctional fluid), cosmetic media (e.g., a lipstick, an eye pencil, an eyeliner and an eyebrow pencil) or data inputting media (e.g., a stylus tip) and selectively projecting one of the plurality of holders to make it available for use.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known composite holding devices include, for instance, one described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 55-38280. This conventional composite holding device has a sleeve case having a fore end opening, a guide fixed to the rear end opening of the sleeve case and having two guide grooves extending in the axial direction and opposite each other diametrically, a mechanical pencil element (holder) and a ballpoint element (holder), each having a slider guided by the matching guide groove, and a sleeve acting cam surrounding the guide so as to be rotatable to the guide within a certain angle range and to be capable of transitioning in the axial direction with respect to the guide. The cam has a cam slide face formed on its lower end face to engage with the slider so that the cam, when turning in one direction, causes the tip of one of the two holders to project out of the fore end opening of the sleeve case and, when turning in the other direction, causes this holder to recede and the tip of the other holder to project out of the fore end opening of the sleeve case.
However, at the eccentric position away from the axial center of the sleeve case, the mechanical pencil element or the ballpoint element (e.g., which are holders) is accommodated in the sleeve case, whereas the fore end opening of the sleeve case, which is the projecting position of the holder, is on the axial center of the sleeve case, resulting in a positional gap in the radial direction between these positions.
Consequently, in this conventional configuration, as a holder advances, the tip of the holder shifts toward the fore end opening of the sleeve case in contact with the inner circumferential face of the sleeve case while being forcibly deviated in the radial direction of the sleeve case. As a result, the tip of the holder may be caught by the inner circumferential face of the sleeve case and thereby prevented from projecting out of the fore end opening of the sleeve case. This leads to limited freedom in the choice of the material or the dimensions of the holders because the holders should be made of a flexible material, or some allowance should be given in the length of the holders in the axial direction to make them more bendable.
Furthermore, the above-mentioned conventional composite holding device only permits selective use of one of two holders, comprising a mechanical pencil element (holder) holding a pencil lead and a ballpoint element (holder) holding ink. Thus, its range of applicability is narrow because the number of media is limited to a mechanical pencil and a ballpoint pen having only one color.